A period of consequences

Watching the horrifying events in Paris this week, I have found Churchill’s great speech of November 12, 1936, coming to mind. It is one of Churchill’s prophetic speeches — I believe in the Prophet Churchill — decrying the complacency of the government in the face of the gathering storm in Germany.

“So they go on in strange paradox,” Churchill asserted in Parliament of those responsible for the defense of the land, “decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps, vital, to the greatness of Britain, for the locusts to eat.”

Toward the end of his speech, Churchill rendered this judgment: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

President Obama and his administration refuse to name our enemy. They continue to yammer incessantly about “extremists.” An edict has gone forth to those in the executive branch of government that Islam is not to be mentioned, unless it is to be appeased and defended. Even General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refers to the need to combat “extremists” and “extremism.” The corruption of thought and language appears to be thoroughgoing.

They have become extremists supporting the proposition that our enemy is extremism. According to them, the relationship between Islamist terrorism and Islam is purely coincidental. He asserts that the tide of war is receding when we feel it lapping ever closer. Islamist forces — the forces of the Islamic State — have prospered and taken control of large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.

It’s been a while since Obama bragged that al Qaeda is “on the run” or “decimated” (sic) or “on their heels.” Al Qaeda has grown and metastasized. Despite the extreme efforts undertaken by the Obama administration to suppress the truth, we know that the forces of al Qaeda murdered our ambassador to Libya. This week they emerged to wage war in the heart of Paris, or so they claim. Al Qaeda or not, they represent the Islamist forces arrayed against us.

“It’s time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Obama declared. “Americans have learned that it’s harder to end wars than it is to begin them. Yet this is how wars end in the 21st century.”

Not with a bang but a whimper.

This is not to mention Iran, where the administration’s cluelessness is persistent and comprehensive. Obama still acts as though the Iranian mullahcracy is a friend to be conciliated rather than an enemy to be opposed.